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- [Stephen] Charles, you've dealt with quite a few
real life people in Bombshell
- Indeed, yeah
- Did you ever get to meet any them?
Did you meet Roger Ailes?
And if you didn't, what would you have wanted to ask him?
- Did not meet Roger.
He died, about what I would say about
half way through.
I did meet quite a few of the others.
12 of whom probably, or 13 of whom have NDAs
so we can't really talk about who they were.
I guess I would say that in the case of Roger,
I felt like the narrative that the women
had told about him was pretty strong
And it had a fascinating consistency throughout it.
Particularly trying to arrive
at his particular kinks, and his sexual pathology.
Maybe too strong a word, is certainly his sexual love map.
- We like sexual pathology.
(room laughs)
Has a ring to it. - Some of us more than others.
- We are sexually pathological.
- It was a strange one, right?
Because generally speaking, the female characters
were so much easier to write than the males
because so many women had raised their hand
and in great, granular detail said, "This is exactly
what happened to me, this is how it happened,
this is the power dynamic behind it."
So I had all that I could borrow on.
Whereas obviously the guys,
the perpetrator doesn't raise his hand
and say, "Yeah, I'm the perpetrator."
So those are much harder stories to tell.
But fortunately, Roger had been a subject
of a great deal of journalism.
Very good journalism.
And had also had a kind of quasi-sanctioned autobiography
that was available, so.
It was a subject matter
- Well the biography that didn't reveal, I think,
all the sexual stuff--
- You're talking about Gabe Sherman's?
- [Stephen] Yeah
- Yeah, it was, he did a pretty good job, though.
It just didn't, in terms of some of the underlying,
Roger's desire to sexualize his power.
What he didn't get to is the actual expressions of that.
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- How do you write empathetically
for someone who you don't have, you know, any instinct for?
- I prefer it.
And maybe it's a form of self hatred, I don't know.
But, I prefer to write people who I don't agree with.
Because I can counter, I can turn the scene
so many more times, because I naturally
have an instinct to counter their ideas.
And then to force myself to go back
and sort of do that tit for tat.
So I much prefer to write conservatives than liberals.
- And does it change you?
Does it change your view of that person?
- I think any time you write a human being,
it does some form of, normalizing is too strong of a word,
but it does some form of giving you
an empathetic relationship to their place in the world.
And that is so helpful,
even for perpetrators of misdeeds.
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- You also created a character,
though right?
- I did, yeah.
Yeah, because there were obviously the one woman
you never hear from in those scenarios,
is the woman who has a quid pro quo sexual relationship
with the boss.
And, you know it would be cruel
to out someone in that way,
but also it was just
that's a hard narrative to access.
And so it felt important that that person
not only be a composite slash fictional,
but we say that, clearly.
- [Stephen] You're talking about the Margot Robbie character
- [Charles] I am
- So in fact, was there anybody who came out
and said, "Yes I did have a sexual relationship
with him under pressure"?
- Yes
- Oh interesting, but you didn't go with that character?
- No
- Why?
- The most famous relationship happened prior
to the framework of the film.
It was also a relationship that began
prior to the starting of Fox,
and a relationship that carried into Fox.
And it's status as a relationship
that qualifies under the legal term sexual harassment
was problematic because it was preexistent.
And so I really wanted to very clear stories
that illustrated the dynamic
without getting into the things that were, you know.
I want emotionally complicated scenarios,
but not ones that were sort of legally mired, yeah, yeah.
- Did you find anything to like about Roger Ailes?
- Yeah, yeah he was, Roger's not Harvey.
Roger was a man who was genuinely beloved
by a lot of people, you know, very much so.
And even by lefties.
And so he was someone whose capacity for seduction
was pretty profound.
- Well you could say the same for Harvey.
I mean, he's a man who when he wants to,
could be incredibly charming.
- So I never had any experience
- When he wasn't threatening your life.
You know, and I've had him, have had both.
- Yeah, interesting.
- You never had a good experience with him?
- No, I mean I didn't have many at all,
but yeah, and I don't know a lot of people
who have real love for Harvey.
Even 10 years ago I didn't know a lot of people.
I knew people who said, "Oh, he leaves me alone.
I get to make my movies, I'm happy about that."
'Cause he doesn't normally do that
for most directors.
I've had that conversation, but I've never had.
But Roger was capable of kind of register a paternalism
that really appealed to a lot of people.
And, so, and he was good at what he did.
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